Global IC socket demand to grow at 8.5% CAGR

LONDON  Market research group Bishop and Associates is predicting that the global IC socket business will increase to $2,844.4 million by 2011, up from $1,888 million last year , representing a five-year CAGR of 8.5 percent.

The 2011 figure represents 4.8 percent of world connector demand.

Bishop includes both production IC sockets and test/burn-in sockets in its analysis.

The 2006 market value of nearly $1.9 billion was up 14.1 percent from the 2005 total of $1,655 million, when IC socket demand represented 4.7 percent of the total 2006 connector market of $35.5 billion.

IC sockets are used in all end-use equipment markets. The computer and peripheral sector is the largest consumer of the devices , with a total of $582 million in 2006, or 30.8 percent of total demand for IC sockets. The industrial and data/telecom sectors are also large users.

The regional breakdown from the market research group suggests demand in the North American region will increase from $472 million in 2006 to $596 million, a CAGR of 4.8 percent.

Bishop says the biggest growth is likely to come from China, where demand would grow from $355 million in 2006 to $781 million, a CAGR of 17.1 percent. The slowest growth will be in Europe, at 3.1 percent over the period, from $416 million to $485.5 million.

Comparable figures for Japan are 4.1 percent growth, from $276 million to $338 million, and for Asia Pacific, growth is put at 12 percent, up from $250 million last year to $441 million by 2011.